


The Whole "Wizarding School" Thing

by jumpsoap



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Canon Disabled Character, First Day of School, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-08 17:19:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12258702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jumpsoap/pseuds/jumpsoap
Summary: Thanks for reading, and thanks to @Charlie_Bucket for the prompt! I hope you like it. I had a ton of fun with this and would love to write more in this AU.Comments & critique welcome!





	The Whole "Wizarding School" Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Charlie_Bucket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie_Bucket/gifts).



 

Prompto had been to King’s Cross Station only once in his young life, right after his parents had moved to London, and had been terrified by the noise and the crowds, the unfamiliar accents. Walking through it, now, towing a cart of old luggage stuffed with his school supplies and clothing, he was overwhelmed once more.

The older girl who had been sent by the school he was meant to be attending had told him all about the station, and the hidden platform he was meant to access by walking straight through a wall. 

He looked around at the adults swarming around him, their own luggage bumping into his cart. He could barely make out the platform numbers, squinting through his smudged glasses and trying not to be bowled over.

He cleaned his glasses on his shirt, tugging it down over his belly as he placed them back on his face. The girl, Lunafreya, told him he shouldn’t wear the robes he had bought in that strange little market she’d taken him to until he found the train. The point was to be inconspicuous, which might have worked, except…

“Go home, Glinda,” he pleaded with the magpie that was hopping back and forth atop his luggage and cackling occasionally, much to the disturbance of the commuters milling around.

The bird had been a common sight at his parents’ home in the suburbs ever since they’d settled down in England a year ago; Prompto would throw out scraps for her, and she would leave little, sparkling gifts on his windowsill in return. Some days, she was the only living thing he could bring himself to talk to.

He hadn’t known that she had followed him into the city until she swooped down onto his shoulder as he was passing through the gates into the train station. Despite his half-hearted efforts to send her back, the bird’s presence did make Prompto feel a little less alone. 

Finally, he found it: the divider between platforms 9 and 10. No one was looking at him. Glinda had gone quiet, tucked down among the bulges in his lumpy suitcase. 

The huge clock on the wall said it was nearly time for his train to leave, so Prompto squeezed his eyes shut and walked straight at the brick wall, just as Lunafreya had told him to.

He didn’t feel anything as he passed through, but the change in atmosphere was palpable even before he opened his eyes.

Wizards and witches filled up this platform, along with their magical children, pulling robes over their heads and exchanging huge golden and silver coins, pockets smoking and sparking with no one batting an eye. Prompto felt a little better about Glinda when he looked up and saw a pair of owls chasing each other, one diving right through the smokestack of the handsome red engine.

He only had a moment to feel better, though, because Glinda took off the moment he came to a stop. Prompto followed her, letting the handle of his luggage cart slip from his sweating palm as he pushed through the crowd. He watched in horror as she dove right into the lap of a child sitting in a wheelchair, two adults standing over him.

Prompto dashed, the people around him shouting as he crashed through them.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” he yelled. “Don’t hurt her.”

The two adults had moved in to grab the bird, but the kid in the wheelchair--slender, pale, dressed in all black even without his school robes--waved them back. Prompto swallowed hard, still panting from running, as they all turned to look at him. Even the adults were wearing black, like they were coming from a funeral. All three of them had somber enough expressions for that to be the case, too.

One of the women crouched down next to the boy. “Are you alright, Noctis?”

_ Noctis _ , Prompto noticed. He’d heard the name before.

_ “I know a boy in your year, _ ” Lunafreya had told him, “ _ He’s a bit reserved. Maybe you could be a good friend to him, Prompto. _ ” 

“Keep your bird in its cage,” Noctis snapped, but Prompto noticed that he lifted Glinda up from his lap gently, smoothing the yellow patch of feathers on her chest before handing her over. 

“Sorry,” Prompto muttered again, taking Glinda and backing off. These people didn’t seem to have any more to say to him, but he lingered, watching them from the crowd.

“The train will be leaving soon,” one of the women in black suits was saying. “You’ll see your father at Hogwarts.”

Noctis didn’t respond to this, just ducking his head, and the woman who had been crouching down stood up and took hold of the handles of his chair.

Wait… the train was leaving soon? “Oh no, oh no,” Prompto muttered under his breath as he moved back through the crowd, which only seemed to be getting thicker even though most of the students must have been aboard by now.

He rushed back to his luggage, relieved to find it untouched, and heaved the suitcase and backpack onto the train, Glinda swooping and chattering around his head as he puffed. The train started to chug and rattle while he was still walking down the corridor to look for a place to sit without bothering anyone.

He was so preoccupied looking through the foggy windows that he nearly ran right into Noctis, the boy from earlier, who was heading the opposite direction. 

“I’m sorry!” he cried, stumbling to a halt and nearly tipping over onto Noctis with the weight of the bag on his back. 

“Oh, you again,” Noctis said, hand rubbing nervously against one of his wheels. His eyes moved to the bird on Prompto’s shoulder, and then to his ratty luggage. “You don’t have a cage, do you?”

Prompto shook his head, throat seizing up.

Noctis frowned. “Well, I’ll get one for you, then,” he said, gesturing behind Prompto. When Prompto just stood in his way, he ordered, “Come on.” 

Prompto turned awkwardly, juggling Glinda and the handle of his rolling bag. Holding Glinda snugly in his arms, he trailed in front of Noctis as they moved up the train. 

The boy stopped occasionally to climb out of his chair with a wince and peer through the fogged windows of the compartments, until he finally found what he was looking for and tapped on the glass. The sound of conversation within stopped and the door slid open.

A tall boy with glasses, robes lined in green, blinked down at them from the threshold. His hair was light, combed back out of his eyes, and the look of surprise quickly cleared from his face as he appraised them.

“Noctis,” he said. “No one told me you’d be on the train.”

“He needs a cage for his bird,” Noctis said, sitting back down and pointing at Prompto, not showing any indication he’d heard.

Prompto wished he had put on his robes already when the older boy turned his gaze on him. At least everyone looked kind of huge and awkward in them. He tried to tug at his shirt and push up his glasses at the same time, nearly dropping Glinda in the process. 

“I should be able to whip something up,” the boy said, and pulled out his wand.

Prompto took a step back. In his arms, Glinda puffed up her feathers and squawked at the boy.

“It’s alright,” Noctis said to both of them. “Ignis is really good.”

Ignis had raised an eyebrow at Prompto’s startlement, but now he cleared his throat. “ _ Ratum facio _ ,” he pronounced, and made an extremely complicated movement with the tip of his wand. Nothing happened. Inside the train compartment, a couple of the students Ignis had been sitting with snickered. 

Prompto blushed in second-hand embarrassment, but Ignis seemed unperturbed. He repeated the spell, and this time, when his wand moved, a line of light followed where the tip traced. When he had completed the motion, the shining outline of a birdcage remained, and when the light dimmed it left behind a very real silver cage, which hung in the air for a moment before dropping to the floor.

Ignis caught it before it could crash, and set it down gently.

Prompto simply gaped, while Noctis whispered, “See?”  

“Show-off,” one of the students in the compartment muttered.

Ignis, kneeling, swung the cage open and looked up at Prompto.

“How did you do that?” Prompto asked. Even after seeing all the strange artifacts and people in Diagon Alley and the train platform, he’d never seen a person just pull out a wand and do...

“Magic,” Ignis said. He looked a lot nicer when he smiled. “It will fade away in a day or two, though, so you’ll want to acquire more permanent accommodations for your corvid. Perhaps ask at the owlery.” 

Prompto nodded dumbly. When he squatted down to urge Glinda into the cage, she tried to spread her wings and struggle away. “She doesn’t like it,” he said in panicked apology.

Ignis looked at the bird for a moment, then pulled something out of the pocket of his robes: a wrapped pastry, which he opened and crumbled part of into his palm, then held out to Glinda, who hopped onto his wrist. 

Ignis didn’t even wince as she pecked the food up, talons digging into his bare skin. He lowered her carefully into the cage and shut it. “Pretty markings on this one,” he said, when she was happily contained and eating.

“Ignis!” A girl from his compartment called. “Come look at Biggs’s wart, it’s  _ bubbling. _ ”

Ignis declined. “Excuse me for a moment,” he said to his friends, shutting the door on their laughter and turning to Noctis. “I thought you’d be coming up from the village with Gladiolus.”

Noctis glanced at Prompto, who was used to realizing he wasn’t wanted. He thanked the two of them as he squeezed past Noctis, wrestling his luggage with him, one arm wrapped around Glinda’s big new cage.

“Your father wanted you to come by train?” Prompto could hear Ignis’s soft voice.

“That’s what  _ Monica _ said,” Noctis’s reply was louder. “ _ He  _ didn’t tell me anything.”

Prompto finally found an empty compartment near the back of the train that he could dump his bags onto the floor of. He sank down onto one of the seats and set Glinda’s cage down next to him. She’d settled down onto the solid base of the cage, preening after her meal.

“I guess Noctis wanted to see his dad before he got on the train,” he said to Glinda. His own father had dropped him off just outside the station; luckily, one of his delivery routes had taken him through the city that day. His parents didn’t pretend to understand the whole “wizarding school” thing--or even the “boarding school” thing--but he knew they were happy for him, once they’d been convinced he would be safe and cared for.

The scenery that drifted past the train window was some of the prettiest Prompto had seen since his parents had brought him to England, and despite how tired he was from the journey so far, it wasn’t long before he was digging the little digital camera out of his backpack and kneeling up on the seat to take pictures of the rolling hills, the gathering clouds, Glinda in her ephemeral new cage with the light of the sunset spilling over her. 

When he heard the door open, he nearly dropped his camera. The strap around his wrist caught it, and he steadied Glinda’s cage where the camera had knocked into it. She peeped at him, but otherwise seemed unruffled. He shoved the camera into the pocket of his robes, which he'd slid on over the clothes he'd worn to the station. 

“There you are!” Noctis moved into the compartment, shoving Prompto’s bag out of the way with his foot before Prompto could leap up to drag it onto the vacant seat. “I got some sweets.” He offered the mouth of a colorful bag to Prompto. Inside, something was squirming around.

Prompto shook his head, wary of whatever was inside and not quite sure of Noctis’s motives. “Thanks for helping me,” he said instead. 

Noctis shrugged, digging around in the bag and pulling out a writhing gummy worm. “Iggy helped.” He chewed on the candy--it wasn’t really alive, right?--and edged over to the window to look out. 

Prompto scrambled to think of something to say. “He had green on his clothes,” he came up with.

Noctis started at him. 

“Um… is that because he's older?” Prompto asked. He'd seen other colors on other students’ clothes.

“No, it's because he's a Slytherin.” Noctis said, and must have seen the confusion in Prompto’s face. “You know, Slytherin house?”

“Oh,” Prompto said so that Noctis would think he understood. 

“Have you seen the castle or anything?” 

“There’s a castle?” He’d seen trees. 

“I bet we’re close,” Noctis said, more to himself than to Prompto, it seemed.

Prompto glanced at Glinda, who was sleeping again. He’d wanted to take more pictures, but didn’t really want to take out his camera in front of Noctis. He hadn’t seen anyone else with electronics and he wasn’t completely sure they were allowed.

“Your dad,” Prompto said, before the silence stretched on too long and he lost his nerve. “Why couldn’t he meet you at the station?” 

Noctis looked at him, and Prompto felt like he had just asked a very stupid question. “He’s the headmaster of Hogwarts.”

“Oh. I didn’t know.”

“You don’t know much, do you?” 

Prompto looked at his hands in his lap. He didn’t know anything. How was he expecting to get by at a magical school when all he’d ever known was how to be boring and average? Or worse than average. 

The sky grew orange and pink outside, and Noctis seemed to have gotten tired of him, or maybe just tired in general. The next time Prompto stole a glance at him, he was dozing in his chair, hand still half-buried in the bag of candy. 

Out the window, Prompto caught a glance of the view outside in the last light of day: the unmistakeable gray turrets of an ancient castle, surrounded by tree-covered hills and quickly obscured by more trees and the fog rolling in.

He must have gasped, because Noctis startled awake. “What is it?” 

“I saw the castle.” 

“Really?” He leaned toward the window, but the structure was completely out of view by now; the train’s path had taken it down into a valley, and all they could see outside were the thick trunks of trees. Noctis drummed his feet against his footrest until the train began to slow and finally stop.

“Leave your stuff,” Noctis instructed. “They’ll take it up for you.” 

Prompto stopped struggling with his backpack and reached for Glinda’s cage.

“Your bird, too,” Noctis said, tapping his feet on his chair’s footrests. 

“But--”

“It’s fine, come on!” 

Prompto followed Noctis as he got off the train, but hung back afterward. Noctis probably didn’t want to be seen with someone like him. His dad was the headmaster of the school, and he had cool older friends. 

The late summer night was a little cool, humidity hanging thick in the air. The train station they’d come to was much more modest than King’s Cross: just a covered platform, sides open to the air, oil lamps burning on posts all around, barely affecting the heavy darkness. 

Older students were already heading out, confident and cheerful, thinning the mass of children until only confused, wide-eyed newcomers remained. 

“First years?” A woman called, voice soft but somehow audible even over the hum of conversation and wind. “First years, please, come together.”

The other students were looking around, none of them able to locate the source of the voice.

Prompto stood on his toes, craning his neck.

From the darkness surrounding the train platform, two floating flames appeared, framing a woman with clothing and hair as black as the night. As she moved closer to the crowd of children, who had drawn together, Prompto saw that her eyes were closed. 

She smiled, but never opened her eyes. “I am Gentiana, the groundskeeper of Hogwarts. I hope you are all excited to begin your education in the magical arts.”

Prompto looked around at the other students, gauging their reactions. This elegant woman was a groundskeeper?

“Now, if you will all follow me, we will proceed to the castle.”

She turned and walked into the night, the floating flames moving with her. Most of the students seemed a little hesitant, but Noctis was among the first to follow, his aloof expression not changing as he propelled his chair forward, so Prompto went after, and the other students--about forty in all--fell in.

As they exited the pavilion onto a dirt path, Gentiana’s flames multiplied, splitting off to illuminate the line of children with a plume of fire every few feet. 

Prompto wondered if Noctis was having trouble with his chair in the damp dirt, but the other boy wasn’t making any indication that he needed or wanted assistance. 

The ground began sloping, just a little, and Prompto could smell a body of water nearby. Before he knew it, their footsteps, soft through the dirt, had changed to thumps on a wooden dock, and they were looking over a lake, its surface reflecting the suspended flames. 

Small boats tapped against the sides of the dock. Gentiana turned when she reached what must have been the edge and gestured to the boats without a word. 

Prompto looked to Noctis. He half-expected the groundskeeper to wave her hand and lift him into the air, but Noctis had clipped the breaks on his wheels and was standing up with a grimace. 

Before Prompto could move to help him, Gentiana was there, taking Noctis’s hand and steadying him until he could step into the nearest boat. Gentiana then folded up the wheelchair--and it disappeared between her hands, right in front of Prompto. 

She must have somehow perceived his shocked expression, because she smiled at him. 

All around, the other students were clambering into boats, so Prompto shook his head and did the same, determined not to stumble and fall into the water.

Two other students squeezed into the boat with Noctis and Prompto, but none of them spoke, the quiet rocking of the boat and the chill breeze too creepy to be interrupted.

The darkness became complete, suddenly; the flames above had been extinguished all at once, leaving only a green afterimage in the students’ eyes, and the boats began to move without any apparent propulsion. 

Prompto rubbed at his eyes, alarmed, and looked again to Noctis for guidance. Again, Noctis seemed just as sanguine on this little boat as he’d been on the steam train. He was looking out over the surface of the lake expectantly, so Prompto twisted in his seat to do the same. 

The boats were turning, slightly, rounding a curve in the water around a protrusion of forest. As the trees passed, the castle came into view. 

It looked much larger than it had from the train, enormous in the foggy night. Prompto could imagine that its towers and turrets repeated on forever where it's edges faded into gray mist.

The boats beached themselves on the far shore of the lake, and the water lapping at the ground receded just enough for the students to step onto firm land.

Noctis’s chair was there, already, somehow, and he sighed when he was able to stagger to it. Still, his spirits didn’t seem dampened. 

Light spilled out from the open gate of the castle, embracing the students when they reached it. They entered into an enormous room filled with people, four long tables filled with students of all ages, stretching along the room to a raised stage at which sat the strangest group of grown adults Prompto had ever seen. 

Standing at a center of the stage was a broad man with gray and black hair, a silver-trimmed cloak around his shoulders. “Welcome, first years,” he said, deep voice reverberating unnaturally throughout the room. “I am Regis Caelum, headmaster of Hogwarts. It is a pleasure to see you all here, ready to begin your education and become full members of magical society.”

The headmaster gave a short spiel about the school, its history and significance, which Prompto was not really able to pay much attention to. He was distracted by the huge room, the ceiling that seemed to be made of crystal clear glass all the way through, the long tables filled with older students. 

At one table, not too far away, a teenager, muscular with short, black hair, lifted his hand in greeting right when Prompto looked at him. Confused, Prompto waved back, only to realize that he wasn’t the one being waved at. The boy noticed him and smiled apologetically, pointing in his direction.

Prompto looked around himself. He and Noctis had ended up slightly apart from the rest of the crowd of first years, Prompto having gravitated toward the other boy without really intending to. If it was Noctis the teen at the table was trying to wave to, though, he was out of luck: Noctis’s gaze was locked straight ahead, watching his father’s speech. Prompto couldn’t bring himself to try to get his attention.

“And with that, we will begin the sorting,” the headmaster was concluding. “Gentiana, if you will.”

Prompto had not noticed Gentiana enter the hall or cross to the foot of the stage, but there she was, standing beside a stool with a ratty, pointed hat atop it.

“Prompto Argentum, please come forward,” she said.

Prompto froze. Everyone was looking at the group of first years, trying to locate him. What had he done wrong?

“Mister Argentum,” Gentiana repeated, sightless face turning toward him.

“Go up,” Noctis hissed, poking him in the arm.

Prompto stumbled up to the front of the room, feeling very warm in his robes. Was he not supposed to be wearing his regular clothes under these?

Gentiana, now holding the hat, indicated the stool, so Prompto hitched himself up onto it, blanching at the sight of hundreds of eyes on him. Thankfully, Gentiana set the hat onto his head, and it was so big it covered his eyes, glasses and all.

_ What’s going on? _ He thought.

**_Someone doesn’t pay much attention,_ ** a voice, somehow both gravelly and smooth, whispered into his mind.  **_Might want to work on that if you want to pass your classes._ **

_ More magic. You’re a magic hat? _

**_And you’re a magic boy, aren’t you? Now, what are we going to do with you? You’ll need to join one of the houses. Which will it be?_ **

He only knew about one house, although it seemed there were more.  _ I want to be in Slytherin! I want to be like Ignis _ , Prompto thought desperately.

**_Hmm. No._** The Sorting Hat’s voice grumbled in his mind. **_True friends are what you need to help you become the person you are meant to be._** **_I see exceptional love and loyalty in your heart, but with no worthy object. Find those who will return your love, and multiply it._**

_ No one’s going to love me here, _ Prompto thought, but the hat was already speaking aloud, no longer in his mind.

“Hufflepuff!” The hat announced just as Gentiana lifted it off of Prompto’s head. He blinked in the sudden light of the hall. People were applauding, most of them at one table, where the muscular boy from before caught his eye again and waved him over. This time, there was no one else he could be looking at, so Prompto went to him, passing a blonde girl whose name had just been called.

The boy scooted over, making space for Prompto on the bench.

“Welcome to Hufflepuff,” he whispered to Prompto, clapping him on the back, nearly unbalancing him as he tried to sit down.

“H-hi.”  

The girl after him was also sorted into Hufflepuff, and took a seat further down the table, the older students cheering her on. 

“So, Argentum, huh?” The boy said.

“Um… you can just say Prompto.”

He grinned. “You can call me Gladio, then. You muggleborn, Prompto?”

Muggle. That was a person who couldn’t use magic. “Yeah…” 

“That’s cool. My mum’s muggleborn. Just let me know if you’re feeling lost.” 

“Thanks,” Prompto managed to say.

Gladio looked up when Noctis’s name was called, and they all watched the sorting hat settle onto his head. After only a brief pause, it called out: “Slytherin!” 

Prompto wondered if the moment of sorting had actually been that quick when he was up there, as well. It had felt like an eternity while he sat there on the stool. 

“Are you friends with Noctis?” Prompto asked the older boy, who grimaced. 

“Not really.” 

Noctis moved to the Slytherin table, joining Ignis at a space near the end. Gladio turned to look down at Prompto.

“How do you know Noct? Thought you wouldn’t know anyone here.” 

“We met on the train,” Prompt said quickly.  _ Don’t mess this up _ , he told himself. Just getting the time of day from someone like Gladio was leagues beyond what he could have expected on his first day.

“Hope he didn’t give you a hard time.” 

Prompto thought of Noctis’s moodiness at the beginning of the trip, but also of how he’d shared candy with him and introduced him to Ignis. Prompto shook his head. “He was nice.” 

“Huh. Well, good.” 

It was the longest and loudest night Prompto had experienced in a long time; he was used to quiet dinners of takeout food in his living room. Now he was surrounded by people, laughing, shouting, joking, people eating plate after plate filled from what seemed like hundreds of dishes that had appeared by magic, spread across the long tables, steaming and ready to eat.

Most of the food was delicious. At least, all of what he tried tasted good. He’d meekly taken a little tart that Gladio said was a ‘really good’ steak and kidney pie, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to bite into it. 

Gladio seemed to know everyone at the Hufflepuff table, and maybe everyone in the entire hall. Some students got up to move around and talk to each other after getting through a plate or two of food, and the faculty didn’t tell anyone off for it.

Prompto looked to the Slytherin table, ducking down in his seat as a much older boy from whatever the red and gold table was, with braids in his hair and a badge that named him Head Boy on his chest, leaned over him to share some story from the summer break with Gladio. Ignis and Noctis were no longer at their table, but he couldn’t see them elsewhere in the hall, either. Maybe they’d already gone to their dormitories.

There was a touch on Prompto’s shoulder, and he jumped, looking up. Oh, no. It was the pretty girl who had helped him buy his school supplies. She looked just as beautiful and commanding in her billowing school robes as she had in the white dress she’d worn over the summer. 

“Prompto,” she said warmly. “You made it here safely, I see.” 

Prompto felt his throat close up and his face turn red yet again. She had remembered his name. 

“Hey, watch out for her, kid, she’s trouble,” the head boy said, elbowing Lunafreya. Now that Prompto was looking, he saw that she had a badge that matched his pinned to the blue edge of her robe: Head Girl. His head swam. There were way too many important people towering over him and looking at him.

Thankfully, they didn’t seem worried that he was incapable of responding. After exchanging a few more friendly words with Gladio, the pair went off together, hand in hand. 

“Ulric and Fleuret,” Gladio told Prompto after they had gone. “Now there’s a power couple. Supposedly in their second year they faced down some haunted ring that was cursing students.”

“Cursing students?” Prompto echoed. Were the students OK? Did cursings happen a lot? How dangerous was this school?

Gladio waved a hand. “Probably it's all bunk. But they’re alright. Head boy and girl, so if you’ve got a problem with another student or anything, they’ll help you, even though they ain’t Hufflepuffs.”

When the feast ended, the students were led away by house to what Prompto hoped would turn out to be their dormitories. Wizards and witches slept in normal beds, right? 

The area the Hufflepuff students gathered at seemed more like a storage area than the entrance to a living space: barrels of various sizes were stacked up against the wall, with no doors in sight.

One of the oldest students beckoned Prompto and the other newcomers forward to stand in front of the largest barrel, on its side in a pyramid of other barrels. 

The girl looked up and down the hall, a little theatrically. “You get in by tapping out a pattern, here,” she stage whispered to them, and demonstrated, touching four of the smaller barrels in sequence. 

The lid of the large barrel swung open.  _ It's a real secret passage! _ Prompto thought, amazed.

“Remember that sequence,” the older girl warned. “And make sure you pay attention to me and the other prefects when it changes.” 

She pushed the barrel lid the rest of the way open and waved the first years to enter.

The blonde girl who had been sorted just after Prompto scrambled in, and Prompto stepped back as the other students followed her. He really didn't want everyone watching him climb over that. 

A hand gripped his shoulder. “Come on, in you go. You'll hold up the line.” Gladio told him, but he was smiling, voice gentle. 

Prompto climbed in; it wasn't such a high ledge after all. He wound up in a large circular room, comfortable-looking couches and wooden tables with large white candles flickering in their centers all around. Opposite of the entrance, the wall was mostly tall windows, several of them open to the warm summer night, a grassy courtyard visible a short ways below.

While the new students stood staring all around, the older students headed to their bedrooms, descending staircases around the edges of the room. Prompto glanced to Gladio one more time, but the older boy was yawning, stretching an arm over his head, and didn't notice him. 

“Your rooms are down here,” the older girl, the prefect, told those remaining. She waved to a recess in the wall. “Girls on the left, boys on the right! Straight to bed, now, you'll be starting classes tomorrow.”

Prompto followed the other boys in his year into their shared room. There were three of them, all athletic and excited, chatting easily with each other. Prompto wondered if they had already known each other or if they had only just met today. He couldn't remember any of their names.

The room was small and cozy, four beds separated by screens. High on the wall were short windows that must have looked out onto the courtyard.

All their belongings were there, too, each bed having been assigned to one of the boys. Prompto went to his, furthest from the door. 

Glinda was there, sitting atop her cage, the hinge open. He didn't know if someone had let her out or if she'd opened the latch herself. It was too small for her, anyway, he figured. She really didn't belong in a cage at all. 

“Hey, buddy,” he said, when she fluttered up to land on his shoulder. She didn't seem mad that he had left her on the train. “You like it here?”

She didn't respond beyond settling down on his shoulder, a warm presence brushing up against his cheek. He looked to the other boys in the room, who were crowded around the foot of one of their beds.

There was a wheel at the foot of each bed, and when one of the boys turned the wheel on his, he yelped and stumbled backward. The bed had wobbled, jerked, and  _ changed _ \--where there was once a normal bed with a wardrobe beside it, there was now a cloth hammock in a wooden frame, a crate covered in rope netting at its side.  

“Cool,” Prompto said, without meaning to say it aloud. He froze when the other boys noticed him, but they just grinned. 

“Yeah!” The darkest haired boy said.

They explored the room for longer than they probably should have, considering they would have to wake up for classes the next morning. When Prompto finally laid down to sleep, of all the wonder he had experienced in the day, his mind was filled with the kindness of the people he had met--Noctis, who had spent the train ride with him despite his clumsiness; Ignis, who had taken the time to make sure he could care for his bird; Gladio, who had taken him under his wing for no reason other than that he had no one else; even the head boy and girl and these other boys he shared a room with had taken the time to speak to him and make him feel included. 

Beside his bunk, Glinda slept in her open cage. They were both so far from the dull little suburban house in which he'd spent so much time alone. Somehow, this castle already felt more like home. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and thanks to @Charlie_Bucket for the prompt! I hope you like it. I had a ton of fun with this and would love to write more in this AU.
> 
> Comments & critique welcome!


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